The mesh looks like it has buttons down the center. Your poly loops do not need to flow entirely around the whole model. I would also make sure that most of the visible polys in the center are quads except for at the top of the forehead. You can considilate points there very nice. Under the stomach works too.
Sketchbook Thread of Trascendental - 3D
Yeah they are quads. Its the smoothing thats making them look strange. I’ll post a low polygon wire as well with the next one so its easier to see. Smoothed out the front though, i didn’t line up the Vertices properly.
Hm, i agree the chest probably has too many edge loops. Its more difficult now because the reference isn’t quite so muscular, its alot more subtle.
I’ll keep at it though, post another update tommorow.
Another update. Havn’t touched the hands, feet or the head properly yet. I changed the topology of the mesh so it was a little better and lined up the vertices as i think you suggested. Also added a little detail into the arms and removed edge loops from the chest to make it simpler. Still not happy with the chest, going to look at my first model to see what i’ve done wrong there, as that one was fine i think. I can see how the legs were wrong in the first one now though 
As always appreciate any input you can give. I know i have a few tri’s where i’ve added detail like on the legs. Is this ok? I know you don’t use tris because of animation, but i mean, are the cuts ok or could i cut into it differently?
Thanks,
kary
#14
Much easier to work out your proportions at that mesh density then with how heavy it was before.
When showing off your side view try to render it out from a pure orthographic view instead of a perspective camera from the side. I know that your ref is that way (as to eliminate most perspective in real photography a tremendous amount of distance and an extreme telephoto lens needs to be used), but an orthographic view makes it a little easier to see the straight sweep of the figure. It looks very close, but there is something about the weight that feels like he’d tip forward (the feet need to extend slightly forward for sure).
Don’t worry about tris to much at this stage, you can work them out later. Just be aware of it, and don’t take shortcuts that leave you with so many that it gets hard to pull them out.
Unless you’re planning to bring in a seperate mesh for the hands/feet/head start roughing those in. They’re critical to the character, and a fine place to peg your exageration. Superheros often have large hands and feet in a 8 head high frame, if you’re going that way you need to start looking at it early. If you’re sticking to reality it still helps a lot ot be looking at them from the beginning.
Hi Kary,
Thanks for the comments. Just realised about the side view, could tell it wasn’t right but i thought it was straight. I’ll do that next time anyway.
Yeah the reference is abit strange, as he looks a little unrealistic. I’ll try that with the legs and see what happens.
haha, just figured out the references havn’t been taken at quite the right angle. So even though i have a texture for my character. Modelling from its been somewhat pointless. Going to redo it with two images from an anatomy book. Which are alot better.
I’ll post an update when thats done.
Heres my update:
(If it doesn’t show yet i think my hosts playing up again, apologies) Form seems alot better defined, even if hes a little “perfect” looking now. I’ll deafintly start putting in the hands and feet now, then do the head.
kary
#18
To my (very imperfect) eye that is looking pretty darn good :). A bit dense (is that wire smoothed?) but thats fine if thats how you work.
One last thing that might be helpful when showing off your character is to get a different material onto the rendered version. It’s looking a touch waxy atm, and it’s making it a bit hard to read the muscles in the mid of the body. If you took it to a simple phong shader (say something setup for a simple clay like highlight) with a simple light setup (say a GI skylight for fill and a single point for a sharp keylight) it would be a bit easier for people to make you the finer detail. Side, front and three quarter views will do a lot to allow people who’ve studied a lot of anatomy, but not neccesarily 3d, help you out.
The bold strokes look fine to me, and my sympathizes if you’re hosted with dreamhost, what a wacky weekend this was.
Hi Kary,
Dreamhost yeah, you know what i mean! Seems there up and down all the time atm. Annoying
Thanks. I wasn’t sure actually, i preferred the first mesh i did but the proportions on this one do look better i guess.
Its smoothed so its abit dense. The mesh itself i’m not sure…I’ve started to add in a few little details. Do you think that was abit of a bad move at this stage? That has made the pectorals and chest quite alot denser.
Yeah thats a pre-finished SSS shader for the skin without maps. But i can create a new phong material and add that on. Side front and three quarter i can do No problem.
I’m roughing out the hands at the moment and i think there looking OK for a change. Can’t believe it but i guess third time lucky. So i’ll post that in abit.
Thanks for the feedback Kary,
An update. More to come, moving on to the head now. The lower legs not right, the pelvis still looks wrong and i’m not happy with the chest i prefer the topology of the first mesh for that so i may replicate that.
ANother update.
I’ve now moved onto the head. But i can’t seem to get the proportions right. I think i’ve squashed too much of the edge looping into the center of the face and thats why it has that aztec mask look (Or something, i’ve seen a mask that looks similair to the front view somewhere). Anyway, i’m not completely sure what i’m doing wrong. I’ve included references with the screenshots and i did a paint over for the skull so i could line things up properly but, like i say i still think it looks wrong.
Going to keep at it, though if anyones got any pointers that’d be great.
I’ve done some more to the general topology. Think i have the pelvis and groin area alot better now than before. I’ve also got some better renders, apologies for the others, i know there bad.
Also made the feet and slightly refined the head. The thing on his arm is part of the characters clothes. Critique appreciated as always. Will start the texturing once i sort his eyes out oh and the clothes.
Rebeccak
#24
I don’t know if you’ve seen these, but from the freedomofteach site, there are some very useful downloads:
http://www.freedomofteach.com/main.php?sect=downloads&pid=index
Organic Modeling 1 DVD - Human Anatomy: Maya
Reference Images and Modeling Scripts for Download
The Zip File below contains the following files
[b]- Resin Model mirrored front image
- Resin Model mirrored back image[/b]
The zip file is worth downloading for these Orthographic images alone.
Hi Rebeccak,
I didn’t know about that website. Those are good references though yes, should make proportioning things a little easier, thanks for that.
I’ll post another update when i’ve had a look at these.
A small update, due to the fact this isn’t as much about anatomy now i won’t spam the thread with updates lol. But i thought i should show i’m still working on things. I’ve textured the model, made a few small adjustments to the base mesh, sculpted it as well. With currently diffuse normal and cavity maps. Havn’t done the specular or bump maps yet. Nor have i used SSS.
Only have a 3/4 view at the moment. Will do a proper spread when its more finished.
anandpg
#27
Hi Dominic! Nice to see your progress… The fore-arm looks kinda thin from this angle… and whats that seam on the left shoulder? Is he wearing some kind of tight suit?
Hey anandpg,
Thanks. The lower arm is to be honest abit of a mess, but i don’t have time to change it right now sadly, because of the time i have to finish this.
The model is composed of 8 uvw maps. Two on the arms, one on the legs, two on the feet, one chest one neck and one face. The crimping between seams appears to be because of the normal maps. Because i think they don’t match up in photoshop, but i’m not really sure.
If i turn off the normal mapping then it does go away so it must be tha, as i think its trying to inflate the mesh beyond its size and ofcourse it can’t.
I’ve seen alot of your other work in zbrush though, thats where i made the normal maps. Maybe you might know why its doing that? The other reason is the diffuse map which is in places abit off, though on the whole its correct.
Thanks for the feedback,
Dominic